Mystery Zucchini Chomper

Last week-end I had six promising zucchini plants, plus several squash-like volunteers in different parts of the garden. Now 3 of the zucchini are stubs, and so are some of the volunteer plants. Not licked to death as from slugs with ribbons of tissue hanging off, not skeletonized or shotgunned by caterpillars, but with the leaves cleanly chopped off and completely gone. A similar thing happened to the three pot marigolds I tried to grow, even when they tried to grow back. My husband's first thought was a rabbit, but with succulent young lettuces a few feet away, why would a rabbit go for zucchini leaves?  We're leaning toward raccoon, rodent too large to be scared of the cat, or the cat herself. I have known her to sample greenery fairly freely out there, and she does hang out there a lot.

I placed plastic forks (from our wedding 8 years ago next month), tines up, around each of the remaining zucchini plants as a guard fence, and around one volunteer. We'll see if there is more carnage in the morning, or tomorrow afternoon.